


Ruff Day

by FoxVII



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, post heroes vs aliens, some au-ish timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 14:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxVII/pseuds/FoxVII
Summary: The bed was covered with them. At least a dozen, squirming along, whining, nosing across the sheets and tripping over their own feet. It was utterly perfect. A veritable dream come true.For Kara and Barry anyway.Kara visits Earth-1 and, as always, trouble follows. This time, it comes in the form of more than a few precious, furry charges for her and Barry care for. Oliver isn't quite on board.





	Ruff Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riversandroads (SwiftEmera)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwiftEmera/gifts).



> For the most wonderful, amazing, beautiful, intelligent, amazing (wait, I said that), Amie!! HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY!!! 
> 
> Also, a big thank you to Medha (@awintersoldieriscoming) for the last-minute beta and the title. <3

There was something exhilarating about travelling through breaches. It was dizzying. It felt the same as it did when she was flying. Weightless. Sailing.

Oh, and it tickled. Though, the last part might just have been a Kryptonian thing.

Either way, Kara always emerged on the other side with a smile on her face. Though it was difficult _not_ to smile when she knew to expect Barry's answering smile for her on the other side. Even in the instances where her visit came under less-than-ideal circumstances - as some world-ending catastrophe loomed on the horizon - Barry was there with his sunshine smile that made her feel floaty and light and capable of moving mountains and throwing tanks.

She mused that she could be Supergirl even without Earth’s yellow sun if she had his smile to sustain her. Barry walked forward to wrap her in a hug. She sank into his arms with a happy sigh, content to enjoy the other’s presence in this rare moment of not-speaking.

Home wasn’t on Earth-1 or on Earth-32. Home was wherever Barry and Oliver were.

Speaking of…

Kara broke the silence first, raising her head, and accidentally bumping Barry’s nose as he tried to press a kiss to her forehead at the same time. “Sorry,” she murmured, dropping a kiss to his nose as an apology. “Where’s Ollie?”

“Star City,” Barry answered, lowering Kara back down to the ground. She wasn’t sure if she’d begun to float or if Barry had lifted her off the grass with the vehemence of his hug, but it didn’t matter either way. “Mayor-y things to do,” he added, taking her hand in his.

Kara laced their fingers together. “Cutting ribbons and kissing babies?” she asked, with a laugh. She couldn’t reconcile her cranky vigilante boyfriend with the congenial mayor figurehead she expected from a politician. But, considering how much Oliver loved his home and the sort of affection that she knew he could lavish on herself and Barry both, Kara didn’t doubt that he was good at what he did.

She squeezed Barry’s hand and looked up at him. “And you? How are you?”

“Joe and Cecile are in full baby mode now. Honestly if he tries to baby-proof the house anymore he’s gonna end up with padded walls,” Barry explained.

“Any day now huh?”

“Yep. Aaaaand. Eddie and Iris are expecting too.”

“What? No way!” Kara bounced on her toes, excited.

“Yeah!” Barry said, sounding as delighted as she was. “Twins too.”

“So many babies!”

Kara sobered, remembering her own infertility. Even if she hadn’t been born sterile like all other matrix-born Kryptonians, her alien DNA meant that she’d likely never have a blood child of her own. Not with a human, anyway.

The dark cloud passed as soon as it came as she vowed to herself to be The Best Auntie Ever. As for children of her own...Well, she could always adopt, one day.

“When are the baby showers? Could I bring something for them before that, do you think? Or after? If I’m not invited.”

“You’d be invited,” Barry assured, letting go of her hand so he could tuck her against his side with an arm around her shoulders. Kara wedged herself in, beaming.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she noted, after a moment. She stopped their walk to look up at Barry, touching a hand to his cheek to force him to look down at her. She was looking for a hint of darkness in that green, searching for that haunted look that she knew well.

She’d seen it on herself too.

But Barry was Barry, and it was as possible that he’d forgotten to address the question out of genuine distraction, rather than avoidance. As it was, his eyes were clear, smiling down at her and reflecting nothing but that sort of pure happiness that she’d come to associate with him.

“I’m fine, Kara,” he told her, reaching down to cup her cheek. Kara pushed herself up on tiptoes to meet his mouth, resting a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. They were on the street - out of the way of the human traffic - but the rest of the city bled away to white noise as she indulged in their quiet moment.

She truly was home.

A sharp screech had them both jerking backward in alarm, tense as instinct flared to life and they searched for the source of the commotion.

This time, it came in the form of a tank truck, barreling down Star City’s street at twice the allowable speed limit. Cars and pedestrians scrambled to get out of the way of the runaway tanker. Kara squinted. The driver inside looked suitably distressed, his face a mask of terror as he stomped on the brakes.

The trunk was careening towards a strip mall, loaded down with nine thousand gallons of propane.

Both darted into action.

 

***

 

One of these days Kara was going to have to show him how she managed to go around with her super suit under her day clothes. Barry had considered wearing The Flash suit under his regular wear, but the lines of the suit were too bulky. He wasn't good at keeping secrets as it was, and having The Flash emblem bulging out of his shirt would be a giveaway.

And his suit was _tight._ How did Kara tuck a skirt into her pants without things showing?

Alien powers. It _had_ to be.

For now, Barry directed his attention to the task at hand and not on his girlfriend’s magical clothing. They hadn't the chance to hash out a plan of action before jumping in, but they were both practiced enough to know what they were doing.

Moreover, Barry trusted Kara. He knew she'd prioritize the safety of those around her. So he didn't bother coaching. The run to Star Labs to get his suit took a few precious seconds so the truck was dangerously close by the time Barry returned. He kept running, speeding along to pick people out of the way of the rampaging tanker. He left the truck itself to Kara as he carried people from the strip mall to the sidewalk on the other side.

That done he darted through the stores, checking for stragglers. Nothing in the Sink, Shower and Stuff necessitated a super rescue. To the next store then. Big box electronics. Nothing of note. Next. And next. And--

Barry found himself in the middle of a pet store. Three birds were stowed away in a cage and run out to the curb with the citizenry. Ten gerbils were hastily coaxed into a carrier. Several dozen fish were bagges. Three rabbits were chased down. A turtle was tucked away. Five kittens were escorted outside in a box.

Which left _fourteen_ puppies. Two trips were needed to safely escort them all to the safety of the sidewalk. He made a quick trip to the other stores and then ran out to wait by the dogs, crouching to pat a gloved hand over their heads, soothing their squirming and whining.

He lifted one into his lap and looked up to check on Kara.

In the time it had taken Barry to clear the building, Kara had flown down, grabbing the tanker by the rear trailer, hauling it up over her head. She adjusted, hefting the thing and shifting along until she was holding it securely, standing under the center of the trunk, arms above her head with the chassis resting delicately on her palms, as if the laden tanker didn’t weigh any more than a book.

She was _amazing_.

As though on cue, the wind picked up, casting back her hair and sending her cape aflutter. She looked every inch the textbook superhero, a small smile dawning on her face as people began to clap and cheer. Barry knew that Kara, privately, appreciated the attention, and he joined in, his own claps muted from his gloves. He kept the fanboying to a minimum, considering the squirmy pup on his lap, but it was hard to when Kara started to fly.

Or rather, it looked like she began to spontaneously float, rising so gracefully off the ground as she did. She rose and the tank rose with her and the only one not impressed by the display was the driver of said tank, _his_ expression caught somewhere between horrified and annoyed.

Kara carried the tanker safely to level ground, smiling with sheepish pride as the applause swelled. (Behind her, the driver stumbled from the trunk and vacated the contents of his stomach on the sidewalk. No one noticed.)

Barry beamed at her as she gave the crowd a wave and then approached him. _That_ was his girlfriend. This literal goddess. His girlfriend. It was awe-inspiring on its own, only that they both had Oliver too.

Barry never thought he’d be _that_ person, the one who was juggling two partners at the same time. Though, to be fair, Barry hadn’t known that it was either possible for it to be like _this_ either. A year ago he’d have imagined something daytime soap-opera worthy, complete with tears and slapping and slamming doors. This? This was…

There weren’t any words to describe what this was.

A little over a year ago Barry had learned that the unattainable Oliver Queen wasn’t _quite_ as unattainable as he’d first thought - thanks, Felicity. Barry had never been all that good at keeping his feelings hidden and he’d been sitting on two years’ worth by then. At the news that his crush might not have been quite so unrequited they’d all just bubbled to the surface at once.

Oh, and then aliens tried to kidnap him.

It was during the dominator attack that he’d finally blurted out, _“Oliver I like you. Not just_ like _you, but_ like-like _you and--behind you! Phew, there. And if you’re okay with it I’d like to keep liking you and--”_

_“Barry?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Shut up?”_

_“Oh.” He must’ve looked crestfallen because Oliver spared a moment between arrows to put a hand on his shoulder and murmur._

_“Me too.”_

The unshakable faith that Oliver had shown him once Barry explained the whole ‘I sort of ruined the timeline’ thing had more or less sealed it after that.

Only, Kara was there too, her faith in him just as steadfast.

 _“I’ll_ always _trust you, Barry.”_

He hadn’t thought it was possible to both fight aliens, face the possibility of never being able to come back to Earth if he gave himself up over to them _and_ have time to spare for personal relationship drama but, there he was.

Super-fast thinking meant that he could fight and also have time to stress over what was what, and if he was reading things wrong with Kara and if he was a totally horrible person for even considering pursuing something when finally, _finally_ he was having some forward movement with Oliver.

After the threat had been cast from their planet he’d found both Kara and Oliver at the victory party, took them aside and spilled the beans. All of one night of secrets was too many and _nothing had even happened yet_ . As he explained where he was at emotionally, (and that he just didn’t _know_ and he liked them both and--and--!) he’d expected Oliver’s expression to grow flatter and more guarded - and it did. What he hadn’t expected was the blank look of confusion on Kara’s.

_“Barry. Barry stop! You don’t have to choose.”_

_“And I’m sorry ‘cause I’ve probably ruined ever--Huh?”_

_“You. Don’t. Have. To. Chose,” Kara repeated again, slowly. She looked between Barry and Oliver. “Is...that not a thing on Earth?”_

_“What’s not a thing?”_

_“Dating two people at once? Is there a word for that? I mean, it always needs to be talked about but I'm fine with it if you wanted to be with Oliver too.”_

Oliver had hesitantly agreed to _try_ , considering that his own history with fidelity (or rather, his lack thereof), didn't give him much of a leg to stand on in terms of protest.

The first few weeks were awkward but eventually Oliver got used to the idea. But then, Kara wasn't around often during those first few weeks either, busy on her Earth as she was. Barry didn't see her outside of a few calls per week, facilitated by tech that Cisco had put together to help Kara communicate with the rest of Team Flash and Arrow.

So it was quite possible that Oliver’s nonchalance was more due to putting the third party out of his mind than it was anything to do with acceptance.

The first time Kara had joined them on an outing, it went right back to that initial awkwardness. Oliver went right back to stiff, and even Kara’s attempts at bubbly happiness wasn't able to crack through his stony facade.

The second date wasn't much better. Nor was the third. By the fourth Oliver seemed to be warming to Kara’s presence. By the fifth he was smiling.

The sixth was a movie night at Oliver’s, and when Barry had first seen Kara with her feet up in Oliver’s lap and Oliver’s hand resting on her arm, he'd felt a stab of jealousy.

For the first moment he realized that it wasn't that he was with Kara and Oliver both, but they were getting closer to one another too. What if he was forgotten? What if they got bored of him and just decided to date one another? What if he lost them both? What if--

Kara scooted to make room and wedged him in between herself and Oliver. She curled into his side and Oliver slid an arm around his shoulders and…

Okay.

Okay this was okay.

It turned out Barry was wrong.

It wasn't just okay. It was _amazing_.

And a year later, it was still amazing. He was practically smothered in love, supported by two people who not only understood his vigilante life but lived it with him, each helping the other.

Kara knelt in front of him, diving into the box with a happy squeal. “Puppies!” She was holding one in her hands, dropping kisses onto its face.

“So many,” she exclaimed, looking at the two boxes. A pause, and then, “I want this one,” she decided.

“He looks like he's friends with this one,” Barry said, pointing.

“Then I'll take that one too.”

“Yeah? Cause his friend also has a friend.”

“Oh...well we can't just break them up!” Kara looked around, spotting a woman dressed in a smock with the pet store’s logo on it. “You! Can you ring us through? We’ll take them.”

The woman gaped. “All of them?”

Kara looked down at Barry and he looked over at the cashier, three puppies now crowding his lap.

“All of them,” he confirmed.

 

***

 

The bed was covered with them. At least a dozen, squirming along, whining, nosing across the sheets and tripping over their own feet. It was utterly perfect. A veritable dream come true.

For Kara and Barry anyway.

"What--What is this?"

Oliver's voice had Kara finally looking up at him and _so nice of you to finally notice_. Oliver had been standing there for a full two minutes. One was spent silent, in shock. The other was spent waiting for either of his partner’s to acknowledge his presence.

"They're puppies Oliver!" she answered, cheerily. Barry was, at the moment, buried under three of them and apparently far too distracted to answer for himself.

"I can see that," Oliver answered, forcing his voice to be level. The Voice of Infinite Calm, Thea had called it. “I know what puppies are,” he said. Sometimes he wondered if he was actually dating two of them. “What are they doing *here*?" he asked, by way of clarification.

"Well," Kara leaned over to catch a pup who had wandered too close to the edge of the bed. She scooped him up with a hand under his belly, plopping him in the vee of her legs along with the other two already squirming there. "There was a truck," she answered.

"Puppies!" Barry agreed, in-between making cooing noises at the lab that was excitedly crawling over him. "And a store," he added, looking away long enough to nod sagely.

Kara bobbed her head with him. "The store! It was going to--aw baby are you hungry?" she asked, cutting herself off to look down at the chocolate lab nosing at her fingers. "Okay we're gonna need kibble...so much kibble. And water. And beds!"

"They're not staying here," Oliver protested. His was the voice of a man who knew he was going to lose this battle but needed to express token displeasure for the principle of it.

"Well where else are they going to go?" Kara asked, fixing Oliver with a wide-eyed, imploring stare, matching the gaze of three of the dozen puppies, along with as Barry twisting around in time to fix Oliver with an equally plaintive look.

“A shelter?” Oliver deadpanned.

"Well...no...they're ours," Barry corrected, sitting up. There was a corgi pup under one arm, a german shepherd under the other with a lab sprawled in his lap.

“Come again?”

“I might've sort of bought them?”

“Technically The Flash bought them,” Kara corrected.

Oliver shook his head. “Why did you buy puppies as your alter ego?”

“We were in costume.”

“Didn't have time to change.”

“So I just...went with it for the paperwork. First name 'The’. Last name 'Flash’. I used CCPD's address…”

“You're serious.” Oliver knew Barry was serious. He just didn't _believe_ it.

Determined to remain the voice of reason, Oliver carried on. "We're not keeping--" he stopped to get a proper count, finger gliding in the air as he numbered them off. "Fourteen puppies."

Neither answered right away, both momentarily distracted by receiving kisses from their respective armfuls. Kara raised her head first. “But...you _do_ have the space here,” she said, looking around the bedroom.

Oliver took a steadying breath, trying to absorb the comfort that this room had always offered him. This was his sanctuary. This was where he was safe.

Mostly.

They'd had a few mishaps here as far as sleeping arrangements were concerned. They’d tried to have Kara sleep in the middle with Barry and Oliver on either side of her. Which, would have worked well if it weren’t for the fact that Kara has a tendency to _kick_ in her sleep.

Oliver had woken up in the middle of the night, on the floor, with a few bruised ribs.

Barry too had - apparently - absorbed some injuries  Only, he'd healed almost instantly and so, volunteered to sleep between them as a buffer.

Which had worked well for a couple of days. Only, Kara also had a tendency to _float_ in her sleep. And while his bruises had eventually faded, Oliver had yet to recover from waking up in the middle of the night to see his girlfriend hovering in the air above him, bobbing by the light fixture, face down, like something out of a horror movie.

These days, Barry used his heat-seeking-missile sleeping habits for good, keeping Kara wrapped up in his arms with Oliver safely spooned behind him.

“We’ll take care of them Ollie,” Kara promised, trying to look as earnest as possible.

“We will. Besides, I think Fred wants to stay,” Barry said, lifting up the retriever and adopting a falsetto. “ _I wuv you Ollie_.”

Oliver raised a hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching to stem off the oncoming headache. “You _named_ them?”

“Well we can’t just call them 'puppy one’ and 'puppy two’, etcetera,” Kara said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Or by species. Or colour. They’ll get confused and think that’s their name anyway,” Barry said, with a shrug. He patted down the back of a lab. “So we just...had to.”

Oliver sent his gaze at the roof while the two on the bed went through another round of dragging back the pups who had wandered too close to the edge, or replacing the ones in their laps with others who wanted attention.

“There will be rules,” he began. And was promptly cut off.

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“Thank you!”

“I’m not don--oomf.” Kara ducked under one arm in a carefully tight hug (not too tight, not too soft, Ollie’s ribs had suffered enough already.)

“We’ll take care of them,” Kara promised, hovering up so she could press a kiss to Oliver’s cheek, draping her arms around his shoulders. On his other side, Barry mimicked the motion, though without the hovering. He was tall enough not to need the added boost. (He was _taller_ than him, actually, much to Oliver's eternal chagrin.)

“It’ll be like they’re not even here,” Barry promised.

“I doubt that,” Oliver muttered, but wrapped an arm around his shoulders anyway, his other arm curving around Kara’s hips, pulling her in. Kara settled herself happily on one side as Barry wound his arms around Oliver’s waist, tucking his face against his neck.

For a moment there was happy silence, broken only by the whines and soft yips from the bed...And then the sharper squeak of an alert on Barry’s phone. Barry pulled away, Kara and Oliver turning at once to peer at the screen as Barry drew it from his pocket.

“Oh man. Okay, I gotta go. Central City,” he explained hastily, leaning in to kiss Oliver on the mouth, then Kara. “I’ll be right back. Well not _right_ back. But soon. Like, an hour? Four tops.” Papers fluttered in Barry’s wake as he darted away, stealing a last hug from them both.

“Alright then, I guess it’s just you and me. If you want to start gathering supplies I can--” The twin beep of Kara’s watch sounded and she looked down. Her brows drew together in a frown. “Okayy it’s National City.”

“Kara.”

“I’ll be back soon! If you just...get started with them….They’re gonna need to be walked soon. Oh and you should get them off the bed ‘cause it’s been a while and you know,” she lowered her voice as though it mattered who else heard them. “Accidents. But yeah like….five? Sixish hours?” she said, backing up as she drew the beacon from her pocket that would let her open the portal home. “I’ll be back to help as soon as I can!”

And with a ripple of space-time, she was gone, leaving Oliver to gape at the bed.

He should've seen it coming.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr!](http://fox-vii.tumblr.com) Come say hello!


End file.
